e sight of whom the Lady Emma changed colour, and
exclaiming, "It is the same!" sunk senseless into the arms of Matilda.

"She is bewildered by the terrors of the day," said Eleanor; "and we have
done ill in obliging her to descend."

"And I," said Fitzosborne, "have done madly in presenting before her one
whose presence must recall moments the most alarming in her life."

While the ladies supported Emma from the hall, Lord Boteler and St. Clere
requested an explanation from Fitzosborne of the words he had used.

"Trust me, gentle lords," said the Baron of Diggswell, "ye shall have
what ye demand, when I learn that Lady Emma Darcy has not suffered from
my imprudence."

At this moment Lady Matilda, returning, said that her fair friend, on her
recovery, had calmly and deliberately insisted that she had seen
Fitzosborne before, in the most dangerous crisis of her life.

"I dread," said she, "her disordered mind connects all that her eye
beholds with the terrible passages that she has witnessed."

"Nay," said Fitzosborne, "if noble St. Clere can pardon the unauthorized
interest which, with the purest and most honourable intentions, I have
taken in his sister's fate, it is easy for me to explain this mysterious
impression."

He proceeded to say that, happening to be in the hostelry called the
Griffin, near Baddow, while upon a journey in that country, he had met
with the old nurse of the Lady Emma Darcy, who, being just expelled front
Gay Bowers, was in the height of her grief and indignation, and made loud
and public proclamation of Lady Emma's wrongs. From the description she
gave of the beauty of her foster-child, as well as from the spirit of
chivalry, Fitzosborne became interested in her fate. This interest was
deeply enhanced when, by a bribe to Old Gaunt the Reve, he procured a
view of the Lady Emma as she walked near the castle of Gay Bowers. The
aged churl refused to give him access to the castle, yet dropped some
hints, as if he thought the lady in danger, and wished she were well out
of it. His master, he said, had heard she had a brother in life, and
since that deprived him of all chance of gaining her domains by purchase,
he, in short, Gaunt wished they were safely separated. "If any injury,"
quoth he, "should happen to the damsel here, it were ill for us all. I
tried, by an innocent stratagem, to frighten her from the castle by
introducing a figure through a trap-door and warning her, as if by a
voice f